The Ordinary World
by mlast
Summary: The war is over. The lambent are gone. Sera can resume. But former Gear Marcus Fenix is struggling to come to terms with life after fighting for so long. Can he find the ordinary world?


**The Ordinary World**

The rain is pouring down. The sky is dark, hinting at thunder.

It's a gloomy yet quiet street, in contrast to the rain. The rows of houses are oddly constructed, like play bricks a child had knocked down impatiently and then hurriedly put back together again. Second hand.

A figure approaches the back door of one of the houses on the street. Head bowed, they enter the building.

Inside, the house is also quiet, still, although the pounding of the rain can be heard faintly on the rough tiles. Tap-tap-tap.

The figure is male, heavily built, although it seems he has not had use of his bulk for a while. Gone to seed. He is holding a bag of groceries in his right hand, the other empty. He shakes the rain out of his short black hair and looks around.

The kitchen. Looks the same as it always has. But something is different.

He hears a voice.

"Marcus?"

Eyes wide, he steps through the kitchen quickly to the living room. Did he just hear…? Was it possible?

"Dom? Dom, is that you?"

His eyes blur as a figure appears before him, and the tears start to fall as the source of the sound emerges. A male figure. The bag in his hand drops, forgotten. Could it be possible after all these months that the most important person in his life had been here all along?

"Marcus, it's Anya."

Marcus blinks. The figure in front of him changes from a man to a woman with blonde hair. She is looking at him with a concerned expression. Her eyes also seem to be wet. They match the rain outside.

Anya gently takes Marcus over to the sofa and guides him into a sitting position. He doesn't protest. Instead, he stares straight ahead.

"Marcus?" Anya says softly. "Marcus, it's been three months. Dom is dead."

Marcus comes out of his trance and turns his head slowly. Sharp blue eyes are full of tears that do not fall, eyes full of doubt.

"I think I'm going crazy, Anya. I can still see him. He's right here with me."

Anya's mouth trembles. Her head shakes softly.

"He isn't."

The tears that were in Marcus's eyes suddenly dissipate. He stands up so quickly Anya is knocked to one side.

"I have to go find Dom," he says.

And he is gone.

He roams the streets. Streets that are full of rubble, full of ruin. But Marcus can't see it. He sees the plant-like stalks swaying, the sky full of rain, he sees his friends fighting to protect the world.

"Marcus! Over here! We need your help!" Jace calls. He's ducking behind one of the overturned trucks, looking ahead. "The glowies are everywhere!"

The others – Cole, Baird, and Sam – are shooting ahead of them, throwing grenades, running – it's chaos.

"Marcus!"

"I'm coming!" he yells.

This is his moment. He rushes towards his fellow Gears, his heart pounding in his head, blocking everything out but the fight. He reaches cover, lunges for his lancer, then panics.

It wasn't there!

Marcus looks up and then realises.

None of it – Jace, Cole, Baird, Sam, the glowies – none of it was there.

It was all inside his head.

It has been three months since the end of the Lambent Pandemic. The war was over. Sera is safe. People can resume their lives. But the war was Marcus's life. That was all he knew. So what life did he have now?

Ever since he had come back from Azura he had gone through the motions in a blur. Get a house, settle down, rebuild.

Marcus couldn't do it. He had really struggled to come to terms with the fact that there was nothing to fight for any more. Anya had had to do most of the work, looking after him as if he were a child again. He had regressed into himself; half of him believing the war was still raging, and maybe – maybe the other half of him hoping it.

The war was the only link he had to his best friend, Dom. His brother.

Marcus was numb. He stumbled around blindly, believing every face he saw along the road was Dom's, that every animal hiding in the shadows was a locust. How did Anya and the others seem to adjust so readily to this new world?

Right at that moment though, Marcus was in his own world. He continued walking.

"Anya? What's wrong?" Baird was puzzled. Anya had just shown up at his place with a face of panic. Anya never looked like this. She was always the calm one. Baird had a sinking feeling. Something must have happened.

"It's Marcus. He didn't come home last night. Or this morning either. He was having one of his – turns. But this one was different." By this time, Anya was almost in tears. Baird thought fast. He had heard Marcus had found it hard to change habits since the war, but didn't really believe it. Marcus was the toughest man he knew. How had he changed so quickly? He didn't say any of this out loud. Instead, he grabbed his gun – another habit not lost perhaps – and with his other arm, led Anya out into the morning.

"We'll find him."

Feet dragging, shoulders hunched. A blank sky, overcast. A blank expression to match. Marcus didn't know where he was; he didn't know what was happening to him. The hole he felt inside his chest was almost unbearable. A part of him was missing, and he had to find it.

He continues walking, reaching a part of the road which leads up to a high plateau. On autopilot, he hardly seems to notice the effort it takes to reach the top.

He is stopped by a slight crackling sound underfoot. Looks down.

He sees he has stood on a newspaper. Yesterday's date. They are still talking about the war and the aftermath. It is horrific. The images on the front of that particular paper show people with horrific scars from being tortured by locust, images of children who have lost entire families, people who have nothing.

Marcus stares down at it. Staring, staring. And slowly, it is like the fog is clearing.

_All my suffering_, he thinks, _is nothing compared to this_.

He looks up and over the plateau. Endless ruins meet his eye, jagged and brutal. There is nothing there. Nothing for anyone.

"You still have something left to live for," a voice says next to Marcus. He jumps, turns. It is Dom.

_It's just hard. That's all._

"People have lost more, in more horrific ways. I did what I had to do to make sure you were safe," Dom replies.

_I don't belong in this world_, Marcus says back.

"The world you lived in before was different. This is the ordinary world. You just need to adapt to it like you did the other one," says Dom. He seems to be fading from Marcus's view.

"Marcus, you will always be my brother." Dom reaches out and disappears.

Then all Marcus sees is black.

When he comes to, he finds himself in the same place, head on the newspaper he had been standing on. It is wet, as if he had been crying on it. However, Marcus doesn't feel like crying any more. He feels different. A hollow part of him had been shed and thrown aside. Dom was still here. He always would be – just not in person. And he was right – the ordinary world was waiting for him.

Marcus is on his feet.

"I will learn to survive," he says, and turns to meet Baird and Anya, who had just appeared at the bottom of the plateau.


End file.
